Wife of Britain's high commissioner is enjoying life in Canada

...after adjusting to the shock of relocating in January from Africa to 'the coldest place I've ever lived'

Julie Pocock, wife of British High Commissioner Andrew Pocock at Earnsciffe, their official residence and former home of Sir John A. Macdonald.

Photograph by: Pat McGrath
, Ottawa Citizen

Like the royal newlyweds who visited from her native soil for Canada Day, British diplomat Julie Pocock is on something of a honeymoon.

True, she's been married for 16 years to Andrew Pocock, the recently appointed British high commissioner to Canada. But while the charming resident lady at historic Earnscliffe is clearly devoted to her husband, she is having a love affair with Canada.

Posted here in January after years in Zimbabwe, Pocock could have been forgiven for taking one look at Ottawa's frigid landscape the day she arrived and getting back on the plane.

Instead, the couple, who spent Canada Day on Parliament Hill with the throngs, have literally thrown themselves into the Canadian way of life.

"We had very good friends we'd made in Tanzania, and they took us under their wing on our first weekend here. We bought our Canada Goose winter coats, snowshoes, cross-country skis and skates. Never having done any of these things, we set about learning. It is the coldest place I've ever lived," she admits, laughing.

She has tackled the job of settling into the seven-bedroom, historic official residence with just as much enthusiasm.

Originally built in 1851 by Thomas Mc-Kay, the grey stone Victorian manor was once the home of Sir John A. Macdonald, who died in 1891 in what is still considered his bedroom on the second floor. Sold in 1930 to the first British high commissioner, William Henry Clark, the residence has since been designated a heritage property.

Set on two acres of prime waterfront, the estate may not be the 27 acres of exotic plants Pocock had at the Zimbabwean posting, but it does have something no African garden could dream of: five maple trees.

"We tapped all five trees this year to make Earnscliffe maple syrup," overseen by chef John Leung, she says, delighted. "I have to say, we couldn't empty the buckets quickly enough and it was all hands on deck. It was tremendous fun and quite exciting. It was a bumper crop this year."

An enthusiastic gardener - "if I need to clear a space, I don't wait for someone to do it for me. That's the only way to get on, really" - Pocock already knows almost every hosta, peony, rugosa rose and clematis on the property, as well as the wildlife.

"Our garden has a lot of very traditional British plants and they've selected the ones that will survive here. However," she says, with a chuckle, "I've yet to work out how to prevent the groundhogs, squirrels and chipmunks from interfering with my runner beans."

The view of the garden from inside the house is equally regal.

Past the front entranceway, which is presided over by a bust of Sir John A that was presented by former prime minister R.B. Bennett, the traditional decor taken straight from the British Government archives has been given exotic flourishes from Pocock's life spent in Paris, Brussels, South Yemen, the Middle East, Australia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

At the bottom of the grand staircase - which, along with every other staircase, is home to families of chubby wooden Australian wombats - an exquisitely carved African bust stands guard next to four of the couple's privately owned paintings by Nicholas Pocock, a distant relative and noted naval artist renowned for capturing battles during the age of sail.

The sitting room, painted in a heritage straw colour from British paint manufacturer Farrow & Ball, comes across as the well-loved room of a well-travelled family. Personal photos are displayed on the piano.

On a small shelf nearby is a collection of delicate porcelain boxes and hand-painted glass plates, collected during their posting to Australia. Meissen figurines are tucked into a built-in cabinet, next to her astonishingly delicate Irish Belleck basket-weave porcelain collection.

Through the archway to the sunroom - Pocock's favourite room - she pulls aside greenery to point out a massive and jovial greenstone hippo named Harry from Zimbabwe and an equally rotund cement Buddha made by Rastafarians.

The River Room, a former balcony that was enclosed soon after the British bought the house, is guarded by two white Chinese lion dogs the Pococks had commissioned years earlier; inside is a massive and intricately carved coffee table from Nigeria. It is clear that while these are the public rooms, Pocock has made them part of her new home.

"I think that while unpacking is a nightmare, it is exciting to see your things. We hadn't seen our things for 19 months and it does make a difference to the public rooms in a house like this that you can have happy reminders of previous postings."

Those memories are peppered throughout other parts of the house, as well. Up the grand staircase, just outside of the Sir John A. Macdonald bedroom, is a collection of Pocock's own photography: stately giraffes, watchful lions and charging elephants.

A gifted amateur photographer, she has already made cards of some of her work and is considering doing a series of images around Earnscliffe for a calendar.

But there is one iconic Canadian image that has already seared itself into her mind, if not her camera.

"What I really like to do, in the morning, is make myself a cup of tea and sit at the big picture window in our bedroom, which faces down the river and to Quebec. In the winter, the river is completely frozen, the snow-wrapped hills are in the distance and there is a particular light you get. And then in the spring, it just explodes in a matter of days.

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